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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Analyzing Horizontal Mergers: Unilateral Effects In Product-Differentiated Markets, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Analyzing Horizontal Mergers: Unilateral Effects In Product-Differentiated Markets, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
All Faculty Scholarship
This essay offers a brief, non-technical exposition of the antitrust analysis of horizontal mergers in product differentiated markets where the resulting price increase is thought to be unilateral - that is, only the post-merger firm increases its prices while other firms in the market do not. More realistically, non-merging firms who are reasonably close in product space to the merging firm will also be able to increase their prices when the post-merger firm's prices rise. The unilateral effects theory is robust and has become quite conventional in merger analysis. There is certainly no reason for thinking that it involves any …
The N-Effect More Competitors, Less Competition, Stephen M. Garcia, Avishalom Tor
The N-Effect More Competitors, Less Competition, Stephen M. Garcia, Avishalom Tor
Journal Articles
This article introduces the N-effect—the discovery that increasing the number of competitors (N) can decrease competitive motivation. Studies 1a and 1b found evidence that average test scores (e.g., SAT scores) fall as the average number of test takers at test-taking venues increases. Study 2 found that individuals trying to finish an easy quiz among the top 20% in terms of speed finished significantly faster if they believed they were competing in a pool of 10 rather than 100 other people. Study 3 showed that the N-effect is strong among individuals high in social-comparison orientation and weak among those low in …